Bear Claw Bodyguard (18 page)

And if this was it…

Grayness.

She came back around, panicked. “Jack!”

“I’m here.” His voice was right in her ear, his cheek pressed to her temple. As those inputs became clear, she could also feel his arms around her and hear the quick thud of his heart beneath her face where it pressed on his chest. Or maybe that was her heart. She wasn’t sure, couldn’t separate one sensation from another through the spinning in her head and the fractured reality of the Death Stare high.

She knew one thing for certain, though, and it needed to be said now. So she forced herself all the way back to consciousness and opened her eyes through an effort of will.

When she saw mountain lakes, she smiled. “There you are.”

Jack’s skin was gray, his eyes stark, his voice broken as he rasped her name.

Lifting a hand to his cheek as she had done when they made love, she whispered, “For the record, I wouldn’t have needed to take it slow. I already know that you’re the one for me.” She reached up and kissed him, and tasted tears. “I love you, Jack. And I’m so very sorry for leaving you like this.”

His face crumpled; his eyes filled. And as the world grayed out, she heard him roar out her name and felt him
scoop her up in his arms as if she weighed nothing. Which at that moment was exactly what she was feeling.

Nothing.

J
ACK MIGHT HAVE PULLED OFF
walking through armed camps and police stations by marching along and making it look like he had someplace to be in a hurry, but kicking open the door of a drug trailer and stalking down from it carrying an unconscious woman in his arms wasn’t exactly subtle.

He’d scouted first, though; all the guns that swung instantly to cover him belonged to the good guys.

“Hold!” Tucker’s voice called the moment he cleared the door, followed by, “Stand down.” And then the ranks broke and Tucker was headed for him, followed closely by several other cops, good men who he’d known most of his life. Tucker’s face was creased with concern. “Was she shot?”

“Took a syringeful of the drug meant for me.” And he suspected that fact would haunt him for the rest of his life, especially if she didn’t pull through.

She was going to pull through, though. He intended to make sure of that.

Tucker blanched. “Damn, Jack.”

“Don’t,” he said harshly, feeling himself start to crack under the threat of sympathy. “She’s going to be fine.” Jerking his head back toward the lab trailer. “You’ll want cuffs and transpo for three guys. One of them’s Proudfoot.”

Tucker’s expression flattened toward relief, but he said only, “Good work, Detective.” Now wasn’t the time for celebration.

Jack nodded. “Thanks for coming. Glad you got the message.”

“Stealing my phone and Alyssa’s car was a nice touch.” Tucker held out Jack’s cell, which still showed his text message of
He’s got Tori. Find me when you get this.

“Figured you could track one or the other of them.” Jack shrugged, pulled Tucker’s bells-and-whistles phone out of his pocket, and made the exchange. “I needed the head start and couldn’t trust anyone else to make sure I got it.”

“And you’re way too used to going it alone. Maybe it’s time you rethought that part of things and started letting someone else inside.”

“I already did.” Jerking his head in a nod, Jack turned and headed for the wide warehouse doorway, and the blinking lights of an ambulance beyond.

Someone had called for the paramedics, who came hustling in and tried to take Tori away, but he snarled them down and carried her out himself. He was peripherally aware of the task force members swarming the warehouse complex, and knots of militiamen seated in cuffs, leaning back-to-back under armed guard as they awaited buses to come and transport them to lockup.

“We did it, Ray,” he murmured under his breath. “We broke the Death Stare case.” But where only days earlier that one case had been the driving force in his universe, it far paled in significance compared to the woman who lay too cool and still in his arms, her body flowing like water, limp and unresisting as he lowered her to a proffered gurney. “I’m riding with her,” he said flatly, “and we’re leaving now.”

He didn’t think twice about abandoning the scene.
Tucker and the others were good cops, good men. They could handle things just fine without him. He, on the other hand, wasn’t handling things nearly so well because as the ambulance accelerated away from the warehouse, blipping its sirens when necessary, he found himself leaning over Tori, counting her too-slow breaths and hoping she would open her eyes…yet at the same time glad she hadn’t, because as long as she kept them closed she was still fighting the stare.

“Hang on, baby. Just hang on.” He gripped her hands between his, squeezing tightly in hope that wherever she was inside, she could feel the pressure and knew he was there.

“Detective!” The paramedic looked aggrieved, like he’d been trying to get Jack’s attention for some time.

“Sorry. What?”

“What more can you tell us about this drug? Is there a treatment yet? Anything?”

He shook his head. “I don’t… Wait.” Earlier, he’d been so irritated with her for the whole “Jack doesn’t figure into this” line that he hadn’t totally paid attention to the other things she and her tech had been talking about. He knew, though, that she had sent the information on the antidote off to her lab, to have them working on it in parallel with the feds. “Hang on.”

Heart drumming with the sudden influx of potential hope, he dialed Information, rattled off the name of her university and department, and when he got an actual person, identified himself and said, “Put me through to Tori Bay’s lab.”

There was a pause and a couple of clicks, and then a distant phone started to ring. On the third digital burble,
the line went live and a semi-familiar voice said, “Bay Laboratory.”

“Is this Chondra?”

There was a pause, and then a cautious “Yes. Who is this?”

“This is Jack…hell, this is Tori’s detective, and I need your help badly. What’s more,
she
needs your help.” He rattled off a quick summary of what had happened, steam-rolling over Chondra’s gasps and exclamations. “I’m sorry to throw this on you all at once, but we really don’t have time for you to be upset right now. I need to know if you’ve made any new progress on the antidote since you last talked to Tori.”

Her eyes fired instantly. “Yes, I have. I coordinated with my friend who used to work in the Howard lab, and—”

“Hang on. I’m going to give you to the paramedic. Tell him anything he can do to help over the next ten minutes, and then brief him on whatever the doctor’s going to need when we get to the hospital. You need stuff flown in, you tell him. I don’t care if it’s rare, expensive or exists solely on Mars, you tell us what she needs and I’ll make sure she gets it.” Or die trying. Because if she didn’t make it… No, he wasn’t going to think about that. Not when he intended to do anything and everything in his power to prevent it from happening.

“Okay, hand me over…and Jack?”

“Yeah.”

“We’re going to get her through this. I promise.”

He handed over the phone without another word, not sure he could speak just then without breaking down. Because as he turned back to Tori, her words echoed in his soul.
I already know you’re the one for me,
and
I love you.

Yeah. He knew how both of those felt finally, after all this time. Tightening his grip on her hand, he bent over her, pressed his lips to her temple and whispered, “You’re the one for me, too, Tori. I love you, and I’m not letting you go without a fight.”

It took two days of dialysis and regular administrations of Chondra’s antidote, but Tori finally woke up clearheaded and ravenous. To her surprise, Tucker was sitting at the foot of her bed.

She blinked at him, trying not to be disappointed that Jack hadn’t been the one waiting. Vague memories surfaced of his having been there other times when she had surfaced briefly but not stayed awake. Or was that wishful thinking? She sifted through those memories and worked her way back, trying to remember through the drugged haze. What exactly had happened in that warehouse? Had she really told him she loved him and that she would stay in Bear Claw and try to make a go of a real relationship with him?

And if so, why wasn’t he here?

Not letting herself panic quite yet, though the potential was definitely there, she focused on Tucker. In a voice gone husky with disuse, she said, “I’ll owe you anything you want in exchange for a quart of Chunky Monkey.”

His face creased into a smile. He looked far better-rested than he had the prior times their paths had crossed, making her think things were going okay for Bear Claw.
“I think we can arrange something, though no promises on the flavor.”

She ended up with a cup of partway-melted chocolate ice cream that tasted like heaven. While she shoveled it inelegantly into her mouth, feeling like she was trying to catch up from two weeks of unconsciousness, not two days, Tucker brought her up to speed on the case.

“Let’s see, what else? Proudfoot is in jail. He tried to cut a deal, but given the number of militiamen who had also been snagged in the warehouse raid, we’ve got plenty to go on when it comes to finding this Investor they were all working for. We don’t have him yet, but it’s only a matter of time. As for the Forgotten, your people and a couple of other groups got together and came up with a spray that kills off the fungus. It’s not clear yet whether the infected trees will ever recover, but at least you guys managed to stop the spread before it hit Bear Claw Canyon.” His voice softened. “You’ve got our gratitude for that one, Doc.”

“Just doing my job,” she said, then felt a twinge because that had been Jack’s line.

Why was she thinking of him in the past tense? Why did it feel like she wasn’t going to see him again?

Her stomach knotted on the thought that maybe she’d heard him say something—like “goodbye”—that she hadn’t consciously registered at the time, but now her subconscious was trying to clue her in.

“Listen,” she began, “can you tell me—”

“What we’re doing to keep you safe, given that you not only know how to scramble the Investor’s equipment, you could probably reproduce the fungus for him if coerced? You’re going to have to go into protective custody for a bit, I’m afraid. Although in your case I don’t think it’ll feel all
that different from what you’re used to. You’ll stay on the move, live out of a series of safe houses and keep working on the case remotely. Then, once the Investor is caught and the danger is over, you can go back to your life. Until he’s out of the picture, you’re not safe back at your university, and you’re sure as hell not safe here in Bear Claw.”

“Protective custody…” she said softly, not ready to believe it. And also aware that he’d deliberately misunderstood her question, and he hadn’t once mentioned Jack. Disappointment shuddered through her and she pushed away the last of the ice cream. “When do I leave?”

“In a few hours, assuming all your tests come back okay.” Tucker stood. “I’ll be here to escort you to your transport. In the meantime, there’ll be a uniformed officer outside your door at all times.” He paused. “I’m serious, you know. This city owes you a huge debt…and because of what you’ve done for us, you’re not going to be safe until the Investor is caught.”

She nodded numbly. “Don’t worry, I’ll behave.” She told herself not to ask, but couldn’t not ask. “Where’s Jack?”

Tucker’s eyes slid away from hers. “He’s been reassigned.” He shrugged. “Sorry. Can I…ah, can I get you anything else before I go?”

Yes,
she thought.
Absolutely. I want to see Jack.
She didn’t say it, though, because he would have been there if he’d wanted to be, or else Tucker would have told her he was coming back. Because neither of those things had happened, the evidence suggested a single conclusion: he was bailing on her. Worse, he didn’t even have the guts to do it in person. He was just planning on letting her be whisked off into protective custody without saying goodbye.

God, she had thought better of him.

“No,” she said to Tucker. “I’m fine.” She wasn’t fine, not really, but she wasn’t about to tell him that.

When he was gone, she was left alone in a private room that had more than its share of flowers and get-well cards, most from people she’d never met. And lying there, she tried to remember exactly what had happened between her and Jack in the warehouse, what they had each said. She could round up snippets but not whole conversations, which frustrated her, as did the doctors who came in and poked and prodded her, and the creeping fatigue that reminded her how badly out of whack the drug had thrown her body.

Finally, in the brief quiet following a reflex test, she closed her eyes to rest them for a moment. And fell dead asleep.

Her dreams were loud and Technicolor, and in them, she remembered telling Jack she loved him, and could swear she heard him whisper it back to her. So when she awoke to find him sitting at the foot of her bed, she smiled softly and her heart went
thudda-thudda
in her chest. “Hey,” she said, “I missed you earlier.”

“I had to take care of a few things.”

He looked nervous, she realized, the dream warmth dissipating as disquiet took root. “What kind of things? And why didn’t Tucker tell me where you were?”

“I asked him not to. I wanted to tell you myself.” He rose and came to sit on the edge of the bed, and take her hands in his, expression solemn.

Her mouth dried to dust. “Tell me what?” She barely managed to get the words out.

“Remember how you said you’d stay in Bear Claw with me?”

Icy heat flashed through her, leaving her badly off balance. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t think, couldn’t do much other than nod numbly. “You never answered me.”

“I know.” He paused. “You also said you loved me.”

“Ditto.” Her voice shook on the word. What was he getting at? “I do. I love you.” She couldn’t believe she was saying it, and that she had said it first. It was the truth, though. “I love you so much that the location doesn’t matter. You matter. Giving things between us a chance matters.”

“Good.” He breathed out a long, slow sigh of relief. “It’s damn good to hear you say that especially given that I just leased out my place and put most of my stuff in storage.”

“Wait. What?” But even as she said the words, a starburst of hope started unfolding inside her. “You?” she asked, putting it together suddenly and getting a most glorious answer. “You’re in charge of my protective custody? But that means…”

“Exactly.” He brought their joined hands to his lips and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. And then, over her hand, he said, “Tori Bay, will you come away with me? Better yet, will you show me some of the places you love, and discover some new ones with me?”

She hadn’t realized her heart had stopped beating for a moment, but it must have because suddenly it started up again, thudding to a newer, stronger beat. “But what about your job?” she protested. “What about your family?”

“Tucker says there’ll always be a place for me in Bear Claw, especially now that the city is finally in line for a decent mayor. As for my family, they’ll be here when we get back. And they’ll be happy I took the time off so we
could get to know each other and figure out if we’re going to be family, too.”

It wasn’t a proposal, but it was close enough to have her lifting her free hand to her chest as her heart did a little dance. “Oh, Jack,” she breathed. “Really? You’d leave it all behind for me?”

“I’ll do whatever it takes to keep you safe, Tori. More important, I’ll do whatever it takes to stay at your side. If that means we bounce around a bit, then we bounce around. If we agree to try putting down roots somewhere, then that’s what we’ll do. Right now, all I care is that we give this a chance.”

“Oh,
Jack
.”

He leaned over their hands, bent down and kissed her. What started out as a chaste brush of the lips caught fire almost immediately as she softened and yielded, and he groaned and took it deeper. Reaching up, she twined her arms around his neck and drew him down, until he was lying partway on top of her and their kiss turned real and searching. A groan reverberated in his chest and his hands went almost rough on her as he dragged caresses along her body and back up again.

She understood, though, because she felt it, too. “It’s okay,” she whispered to him, “I’m here. I’m fine. I’m not going anywhere without you.”

Finally, he stilled, took a long and shuddering breath and levered himself off her to look down, smiling tenderly. “Is that a yes? You’ll give us a chance?”

“I don’t need to give us a chance—I already know that I love you, even though it’s not our fifth date.”

“Tenth,” he corrected. “And I love you, too.” Then he stood and held out his hand. “Are you ready to go? The
doctors have cleared you and there’s a plane waiting for us at the airport.”

And although that was normally one of her favorite things to hear—that it was time to visit a new place, start a new adventure—now she found herself hesitating. “What’s wrong?”

She had to laugh at herself. “I’m just realizing how much I’m going to miss Bear Claw and the Forgotten.” She slanted him a look. “We’ll have to come back as soon as it’s safe, you know.”

If she hadn’t been looking for it, she might not have noticed his soft exhale or the slight shift of his weight that said he was relieved. She noticed those things, though, and it warmed her to know that she could give him that sense of relief, and that it was as precious to her as her own anticipation of a new adventure.

He seemed to see that because his fingers tightened on hers and his lake-blue eyes filled with love. “We’re going to be okay, aren’t we?”

She smiled up at him. “Something tells me we’re going to be better than okay.” Because while they might not have been perfect, they were exactly perfect for each other.